Saudi Needs 50,000 to 60,000 Nurses

This may yet be the best news for nurses today; the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will be needing 50,000 to 60,000 in the next six months. Despite the economic crisis, the Middle East requirement for nurses and other medical staff in the Middle East, and especially in Saudi Arabia, is very high and urgent.

King Fahd Medical Center, a known medical institution in Saudi Arabia have tied up with more than two Philippine recruitment agencies just to be able to fill up their needs for additional medical personnel. Official of the said institution have been in country recently interviewing prospective applicants.

Together with this good news is that Saudi recently increased its inflation allowance from 5 to 10 percent of the basic salary, and this would range from $600 to $1,000. This would be on top of free housing, free transportation, and yearly vacation. Placement fee is usually a month’s worth of salary.

But in spite of such good news, there is one drawback that prevents the country from completing the required manpower. Ironically, one of the main reasons is lack of experience on the part of our nurses, although it does not mean that they do not have the required skills.

For our nurses to be qualified for Saudi hospitals, they need two years actual experience in tertiary hospitals with at least 200 beds and have worked with modern equipment. Unfortunately, we don’t have that much number of tertiary hospitals in the country to provide such experience.

Nurses who have completed volunteer work on government hospitals doing actual staff works, are issued only certifications that they worked as volunteer nurses. Unfortunately, such certification is not acceptable to Saudi employees.

The government, through the Department of Health (DOH) and Department of Labor and Employment, should make these certifications more specific and official for our nurses to be qualified for such opportunities. (Source: Philippine Business)